


Like the Weather

by Koyote19



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Challenge_duck, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 21:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2443772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koyote19/pseuds/Koyote19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unexpected weather</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like the Weather

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: I don't do deathfics (and yes I do see some of you that have read my other works snickering), but kind of heavy on melodrama again.
> 
> Disclaimer: The song fragment and title are by 10,000 Maniacs. I don't own anyone or anything in this story, and am making no profit from the fic. Consider it catharsis only.
> 
> Written for the Challenge_duck challenge: Unexpected Weather in April 2005

//The color of the sky as far as I can see is coal grey.  
Lift my head from the pillow and then fall again.  
With a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather.  
A quiver in my lips as if I might cry.// -- Like the Weather by 10,000 Maniacs

 

I. Tempest

The rain tasted of his lips.

She closed her eyes, tilting her face towards the sky to let the cool drops brush her mouth. Water pooled like tears in the hollows of cheekbones, and ran in streams down her throat. She shivered, feeling the blue silk of her dress grow heavy and twine about her legs. Reaching up, she twisted the mane of long hair into a quick knot at the base of her neck before the rain could do more than wrap long strands into a noose about her throat.

Around her, politicians and dignitaries scrambled for shelter under tables and inside the pavilion set up in the West Garden of the Presidential Palace. Dorothy heard the dismayed, panicked cries through the first rumblings of thunder, and opened her eyes to watch with amused delight as the caterers frantically rescued trays of canapés and finger sandwiches, fruit glazed with dark chocolate and grapes sparkling with sugar. A white uniformed server rushed by, two bottles of wine tucked under each arm and his hands filled with crystal; he didn’t even pause as she snagged one of the bottles away.

She couldn’t help laughing. The uproar that the unexpected thunderstorm had made of the reception was too amusing not to be enjoyed. Spreading her arms into the embrace of the storm, she turned her eyes back to the purple sky; it was the same blue-violet of his eyes, the lightening the anger flashing through him when they fought. She imagined the wind to be his arms, enfolding her in his embrace as she swayed.

“Dorothy!” She glanced to her left, to see Relena standing in the shelter of Heero’s arms, his coat spread protectively over her head. He had acted quickly, and the other woman was barely damp, her dress soaked only from knee to trailing hemline. “Come in!”

“Why?” She spun in the wind’s embrace, and again imagined it was his arms. “Isn’t it glorious?”

Heero snorted, bending to whisper something to his wife. Dorothy could see the odd understanding in his eyes as they met Dorothy’s one last time. Nodding to her, he urged Relena towards the shelter of the mansion at their backs.

“Heero! It’s freezing…” Relena protested the removal, even as he tugged her gently but relentlessly to the warm glow of lights through the parlor windows. “She’ll catch cold. I don’t know…she’s lost her mind…since the accident.”

“It’s not that cold.” His voice carried evenly, even through the hissing rain. “It’s summer. She’ll be fine. Come inside.”

And then she was alone in the garden, standing in the debris of what had been the reception celebrating the third anniversary of the marriage of Vice Minister Darlian to the pilot that had saved the world twice, Heero Yuy.

“Can you feel the rain?” She asked the storm, wishing it would be his voice that answered in the rumbling around her. “Does it thunder where you are?”

Tears slipped unnoticed into the raindrops on her cheeks, and she was grateful then that no one else had stayed to share the storm with her. The sky had darkened to deep violet, despite the early hour, and chaotic streaks of lightening snapped through the sky uncaring of the slender woman standing alone in the garden.

“I’m sorry. Please come back. Come back and share the rain with me again.” Her whisper was taken by the storm as she danced alone in the garden to the music of the heavens.

 

II. Grey Showers

It had rained on their first date. Not a heavy downpour, but enough to plaster long hair to face and back. She frowned, as her ruined dress grew heavy, clinging to chilled flesh; but the shy regret in his eyes held her silent when she would have ended the farce before it began. Instead, they dashed hand in hand for the restaurant, his new coat bleeding around her shoulders.

‘Not meant to be’, she was prepared to say, even before the sky had darkened. ‘Thanks for the evening, but this is a mistake. So sorry.’ But when he held the door for her, she saw her own loneliness reflected in his eyes, and the words would not come.

She wasn’t sure why she stayed through the meal, for the one thing they had in common was the one thing that neither wanted to speak of. And so they spoke of nothing and the silence fell like tears from heaven. Like the weather.

The words hid behind her lips as they emerged from the restaurant, and he stepped into the rain to hail a cab. She could see them reflected in his eyes, and it wasn’t necessary to speak aloud. And for a perfect moment… they had something else in common besides a war and regret.

He held the cab door open for her, helping her in when wet silk bound her legs too tightly. She slid over to make room, but he simply shook his head and stepped back into the grey rain. “You looked beautiful, tonight.”

“There’s room…” She said, almost regretting the evening’s end then.

“I’m the other direction and you’re half frozen. Another time, perhaps.”

“I’d like that.” The words, so different from the ones rehearsed in her head for the week since the date had been arranged, startled them both. But it was too late to take them back, and as the cab pulled from the curb, she looked back to see him standing alone in the rain, arms spread as if to embrace each drop.

 

III. Waiting for Thunder

She’d turned her mind to other things over the next few weeks, turning any mention of the failed date to other topics when Relena pressed for details. He hadn’t called, no doubt regretting the machinations of their friends as much as she had. They were the only two in the overlapping circle of friends and acquaintances that were alone; but loneliness wasn’t reason enough to be together. They came from different worlds, different lives… and different sides of a war that had nearly claimed the world in its final madness.

A month passed, and she found herself standing at the window, longing for rain to wash away the increasingly humid and still heat of summer. Not even a breeze had stirred for days, though the air itself had grown heavy with the promise of moisture. Her long hair had tangled in the humidity, and as a last resort, she’d tied the heavy mass back and away from her skin. It was too hot to care about appearances, or decorum. In the privacy of her own home, she had been reduced to the lightest clothing she owned in a vain attempt to find coolness.

The first rumble of thunder over the hills drew her to the balcony, and she leaned over the railing in relief as the first stirrings of a cool breeze whipped playfully around her. The rain moved slowly across the hills, a silver curtain that refreshed and rejuvenated dry soil and withered crops. She retreated back inside as the first drops rolled down the windows of her house, a lifetime of admonitions to avoid the cold and rain ringing in her mind. But she remembered the feel of the rain against skin, of clothing too heavy and confining as it molded to flesh. She remembered looking back at him, standing in the rain with his arms spread as if to embrace the storm. For the first time, she wondered what it would feel like to do the same, to throw off the constraints of a sheltered life and simply stand in a storm.

Grandmother would be horrified, she realized with delight, and that was reason enough to go back out on the wide balcony, to spread her arms wide, to close her eyes and let the cooling rain slide over skin in a seductive caress. Cotton clung to her skin, but she imagined it to be the touch of a lover instead. And she laughed in genuine amazement at the simple pleasure to be found in rain.

And in the shelter of the storm… she found the strength to stop waiting and call him instead.

 

IV. Ride the Lightening.

“How long?”

“I don’t know. As long as it takes.”

“But…”

“Babe… you know I have to go. Don’t make it harder.”

“And will you come back?”

“Of course.”

She met his eyes then, and cursed the sunlight that forced him to hide them behind dark glasses. He stood at the door; bags packed and gear ready. They’d been together for over a year, a storm season of tempests and lightning, new emotions and rebirth. It wasn’t enough.

“If you get yourself killed-- I will hunt you down. You know that, right?”

“Only too well, babe.” He grinned at her, but in the bright sunlight, she saw the shadows neither of them dared to look too deeply into. “Think of me when it rains.”

 

V. White Squall

“Duo…” She whispered his name to the storm, thinking of him as he had requested. Lost in memory and chilled by the rain, it took a moment to realize that arms were wrapping around her. A familiar body pressed against her back, sheltering her from the downpour.

“Hey, babe.”

“Duo?” She turned in his arms, and his lips on hers tasted of the rain. “They told me you died… that they found the wreckage of your shuttle.”

“And did you believe them?”

“No,” she grinned at him through her tears. “Of course not… the sun was shining.”

“Told you I’d come back.” He tucked her closer into his arms, and they danced in the thunder.


End file.
